Alex Noel unpacks the shocking twists of the celebrity spin-off, where Alan Carr’s secret betrayal crowns him the winner and exposes deeper truths about trust and human nature.
Alan Carr is the winner of The Celebrity Traitors 2025! As it became clear who had won, it was all smiles and relief. Until he revealed the shocking truth to those gathered, he was in fact a traitor!
As Thursday’s finale began, the faithful had been falling left, right and centre, leaving just three; David Olusoga, Joe Marler and Nick Mohammed. Of the traitors, one (Jonathan Ross) had been banished already. But thanks to their considerable cunning, the two remaining traitors, Cat Burns and Alan Carr held on. The faithful were closing in, and it was only a matter of time before Cat was discovered, and banished. But in the end no-one suspected Alan.
This spin-off series from The Traitors has added another layer of intrigue to the reality TV gameshow set in and around a Scottish castle.
This spin-off series from The Traitors has added another layer of intrigue to the reality TV gameshow set in and around a Scottish castle. Our players, were not mere members of the general public this time, but a starry host of much-loved celebrities. With a prize pot of up to £100,000 to win for their chosen charity, our celebs had everything to play for. Each week, as they completed various challenges, and tried to suss each other out at the Round Tables; they also had to ‘play the game’ of appearing to be above scrutiny, while their dealings were anything but.
READ MORE: Does God watch The Traitors? One Christian contestant certainly hopes so
When it’s a cast of unknowns pitted against each other, you won’t know what to expect. But a set of well-known celebrities? That changes things. Not least having to reconcile our existing perceptions of them, with who they are in this new setting. Meanwhile the players were even more confused as they tried to work out - for example, what Stephen Fry might be capable of? If Kate Garraway was plotting murder? And what Celia Imrie was really thinking? We witnessed the speculation, the mind games, the double-crossing and the bare-faced lies. This, of course, was all part of the duplicity the gameshow is designed to exploit and expose. It all feels very…treacherous.
With episodes airing around Halloween and Bonfire Night, The Celebrity Traitors leaned even more into its dark side. A suite of visual and cultural references - Gothic horror, Victorian mysteries, Irish folklore and Shakespearean intrigue - were guaranteed to give us the chills. The cloaked figures of the traitors may evoke Macbeth’s scheming witches, but Claudia Winkleman would not be outdone in the fashion stakes, nor in her commanding presence. And the gameplay saw more conspiracy, deception and subterfuge than even Guy Fawkes managed in his Gunpowder Plot.
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As spooky as this all is, it’s the group dynamics which made my stomach lurch.
As spooky as this all is, it’s the group dynamics which made my stomach lurch. We watched as the celebrities made their alliances, tried to manipulate each other, and weighed up who was a Traitor or a Faithful. Seeing which personalities assume leadership, or jump straight into strategising felt eerily familiar. Others held back, biding their time. As things progressed, some shared guilty looks, or confessed their regret. It was a stark reminder too of how peers and colleagues can influence our views - for good or bad. When groupthink seems more of an inevitability than a choice. In one challenge, when the celebrities were locked up in a shed, and tasked to escape it; Winkleman declared wryly: “Welcome to the worst team-building away-day experience in history”. Quite.
We find one of the most notorious traitors in the gospels - Judas Iscariot. Unlike his faithful disciples, Jesus knew all along who would betray him, he even said so at the last supper. He knew that Judas’ betrayal was somehow necessary to accomplish his divine purpose. So he didn’t scheme or plot in equal measure, nor did he try to dissuade him. He calmly accepted his presence, in tandem with an unerring focus on reaching the cross. He held his nerve, continued to love Judas nonetheless, and surrendered to his fate. As Judas arrived with the guards in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus simply said to him: “Friend, do what you came to do.”
It’s hard to imagine that someone close to us could betray us. As Joe said when he was banished, “it hurts to be stabbed in the back”. In The Celebrity Traitors we got to observe these behaviours playing out within a game (and no-one actually dies). But in real life, someone’s betrayal is much harder to accept, and is very painful. But God can and does redeem it. And we can navigate it without having to resort to our dark sides.
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